White House Announces $1B in Health IT Funding

The Department of Health and Human Services reports that Recovery Act funds have been released to encourage widespread meaningful use of health IT, including the transition to electronic health records. The funds will also be used to train 15,000 people in job skills needed for careers in health care, IT and other high-growth fields.

The White House has announced "nearly $1 billion in Recovery Act awards
to help health care providers advance the adoption and meaningful use of health
information technology ... and train workers for the health care jobs of the
future. The awards will help make health IT available to over 100,000 hospitals
and primary care physicians by 2014 and train thousands of people for careers
in health care and information technology," the Department of Health and
Human Services said in a news release Feb. 12.

The Department of Health and Human Services distributed more than $750 million
of the funds to state and regional entities as "part of a federal
initiative to build capacity to enable widespread meaningful use of health IT. ...
[The funds] will facilitate health care providers' efforts to adopt and use electronic
health records (EHRs)." The release continued:

"Of the over $750 million
investment, $386 million will go to 40 states and qualified State Designated
Entities (SDEs) to facilitate health information exchange (HIE) at the state
level, while $375 million will go to an initial 32 non-profit organizations to
support the development of regional extension centers (RECs) that will aid
health professionals to implement and use health information technology ... RECs
are expected to provide outreach and support services to at least 100,000
primary care providers and hospitals within two years.

"Health information technology can
make our health care system more efficient and improve the quality of care we
all receive," said Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen
Sebelius. "These grant awards, the first of their kind, will help develop
our electronic infrastructure and give doctors and other health care providers
the support they need as they adopt this powerful technology."

The more than $225 million in DOL [Department of Labor] grant awards [...] will
be used to train 15,000 people in job skills needed to access careers in health
care, IT and other high growth fields. Through existing partnerships with local
employers, the recipients of these grants have already identified roughly
10,000 job openings for skilled workers that likely will become available in
the next two years in areas like nursing, pharmacy technology and information
technology. The grants will fund 55 separate training programs in 30 states to
help train people for secure, well-paid health jobs and meet the growing
employment demand for health workers. Employment services will be available via
the Department of Labor's local One Stop Career Centers, and training will be
offered at community colleges and other local education providers."

"The Recovery Act's investments are making a positive difference in the
lives of America's
working families," Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said in the statement.
"The investments announced today will ensure [that] thousands of workers
across the nation can receive high-quality training and employment services,
which will lead to good jobs in health care and other industries offering
career-track employment and good pay and benefits."

The awards are "part of an overall $100 billion investment in science,
innovation and technology the administration is making through the Recovery Act
to spur domestic job creation in growing industries and lay a long-term
foundation for economic growth. In addition to the 10,000 jobs the DOL
grantees expect to fill with freshly trained workers, the health IT extension
centers are expected to hire over 3,000 technology workers nationwide in the
months ahead."